Why the Future Looks Like Pittsburgh

Brookings just released a report on Pittsburgh’s innovation economythat drives this point home. The city’s current position—as a center of world-class research institutions, technology-intense manufacturing, and high-skill workers—is the result of a decades-long process that began in small, niche research labs at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh and has grown organically into region-wide competencies, now attracting investments from major firms such as Google, Uber, and GE.

The course of this economic transition puts Pittsburgh on the vanguard of what we’re calling “new localism.” This theory of policy-making and problem-solving reflects the gradual devolution of responsibility down to the local level but also recognizes that the modern economy can’t be governed by 20th century practices. City leaders need new sets of tools and reconceived norms of growth, governance, and finance to compensate for the retreat (or hostility) of national and state governments.